Why Reform Will Fail: Interconnectivity

Article by AlexanderTheWake

In this article we give only brief attention to only one of the many reasons why reforming industrial society in such a way that it does not ultimately enslave humanity or destroy the biosphere is not possible.

Modern industrial society is a hyper-complex and interconnected system, therefore changes in any one aspect of the society inevitably have unpredictable and often extreme consequences in many other aspects of the society, especially in the long-run;[1] this turns a single problem into a series of problems, so beginning the process of patching up unanticipated problems that never should’ve been there in the first place. This series of unpredictable changes applies not only to the material technological superstructure of the society, but also to the immaterial substructure of values and attitudes that prevail within it.

In other words, technological society is a unified whole: you can't separate the "good" parts of technology from the "bad" parts. Any attempt at reform to fundamentally change just one particular "bad" part of the society will necessarily entail a vast chain of cascading side-effects with unacceptable consequences on all the other interconnected aspects of the society. Furthermore, as Kaczynski details in Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, any attempt to rationally control the development of society based upon predictions will have radical and unforeseen consequences that render the original predictions entirely useless, in basic accordance with chaos theory.[2] Consequently, any attempt to rationally anticipate, prepare for, and control any unintended systemic repercussions throughout the system arising from fundamentally altering just one component is impossible.

An example of this occurrence, put forth by Kaczynski, is the dependence of the economy on harmful practices, such as manipulative advertising and propaganda. A reform meant to solve this issue would have a collateral effect on: the First Amendment right to free expression (at least in the US); a collapse of television and news media, which are financially reliant on advertising; this collapse would perhaps be prevented by governmental intervention, perhaps leading to government-controlled media, and the problems associated with that. In the end you are left with a crippled economy, more problems than you started with, and you are still stuck with the issue of propaganda, only now it is government led.

History is littered with examples of policy makers not appreciating, through ignorance, self-delusion, or arrogance, the importance of this vital aspect of complex systems as they apply to complex human societies. A perfect microcosm of the phenomenon is that which occurs through systematic artificial meddling by civilizations in the ecosystem's on which they are dependent. "Reforms" that go far enough to seriously change one part of an ecosystem inevitably have unpredictable systemic negative side-effects that reverberate throughout the entire ecosystem. A perfect example of this can be seen in Maoist China. In 1958, Mao Zedong, the then president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) initiated a 5-year economic plan designed to modernize Chinese agriculture, with a focus on increasing grain production and also steel production. The 5-year plan was abandoned in 1961, only 3 years after it began due to catastrophic failure, resulting in mass starvation and the deaths of 30-45 million people. There were a number of far-reaching reforms attempted simultaneously that each in and of themselves had serious unanticipated economic and social ramifications that crippled China (hence the frantic decision to abort the reforms as soon as the enormity of the disaster became impossible for the planning elite to ignore). Among these: the PRC banned private farming and forced farmers to work on communal farms and implemented mandatory irrigation and agricultural practices that remained untested. Most illustrative for our purposes was the "Four Pests Campaign." The campaign aimed to eradicate four pests: rats, flies, mosquitos and sparrows, which were perceived as threats to public health and agricultural production.  We can zero in our focus on just the sparrows in particular: the public was so thoroughly mobilized to eliminate sparrows (Mao falsely believing they were pests) because of the perception that sparrows were eating an excess of seeds, depressing crop yields. The unanticipated result: There was a brief reduction of seeds lost to sparrows, but soon, with the sparrows gone, insect populations swarmed (turned out the sparrows enjoyed eating insects as much--if not more--than they enjoyed eating seeds). Locust populations in particular surged, resulting in locust swarms ravaging crops. The fallout of this disastrous case of central planning left desperate farmers to resort to eating human flesh, tree bark and even dirt.[3] When that gruesome stuff ran out, human death soon followed en masse. Though relatively simple in complexity as compared to modern industrial society (the Chinese agricultural environment was equivalent to feudal pre-industrial contexts), Chinese civilization at the time was still nevertheless dependent on a highly complex ecosystem. Significant disruptions in that ecosystem lead to significant disruptions in the civilization (China of the 1950s and 60s) that depended on it.[4]

Of course, the Chinese government still didn't learn their lesson. The communists' ideological commitment to a utopia through technological progress led them to further attempts at massively reforming other key areas of their society to bring it in line with their social ideals, without knowledge of the inevitably systemic, serious, and unpredictable side-effects they entailed.  These side effects often continued to be disastrous: After the monumental failure of the Great Leap Forward, Maoist China continued in its unscientific farming practices, as during the 1966-76 cultural revolution they implemented a universal agricultural model that ignored region appropriate farming, forcing farmers to grow grains in unsuitable environments. This disastrous central planning predictably resulted in further suffering for the Chinese people and damage to the ecosystems.

The case of the Cane toad's invasion of Australia is not dissimilar to the Four Pest Campaign. Cane Toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii (though native to Southern America) in an effort to exterminate the cane beetles who made problems for sugarcane farmers since the beetles, who laid their eggs below the ground, could not be exterminated by traditional means such as pesticides for fear of their ecological impact. Since their introduction in 1935, they have multiplied to around 200 million according to 2011 estimates, and have had disastrous ecological impacts mostly due to their overconsumption of prey and lack of a predator, owed to the poisonous glands on their heads.

The prohibition is perhaps the most infamous example of the unpredictable systemic consequences of reform, as between 1919-1933 the US government restricted the sale, production, and later possession of alcohol by way of Constitutional amendment. Its effect was felt almost instantly: health declined as people resorted to drinking bootlegged alcohol and moonshine; organized crime rose as people started to illegally trade and smuggle alcohol, leading to the rise of gangsters like Al Capone; attempts to crackdown on the trade of alcohol led to the introduction of wiretaps on phones and set a precedent for the US to spy on its citizens; and the economy took a sharp hit with job losses and enormous amounts lost in tax revenue every year.

It's important to not only look at past consequences of reform, but also to look at the likely consequences of certain plans for reform (of course this cannot be predicted accurately, but guesses can be made). A good example is an idea commonly tossed about in left wing circles that claim the issue is big businesses and not the nature of the techno industrial system. To them it seems evident that many issues in society could be solved by putting emphasis on small businesses and craftsmen. While this would give relatively more autonomy to the individual, the immediate effects are obvious: the economy would crash on a scale last seen in the fall of the USSR, and before that perhaps since the great depression. Assuming this reform was implemented primarily in the US, you could guess that one of two paths would be followed: either businesses leave the US causing the US to fall behind significantly on the world stage in favor of less restrictive nations, or, considering the world’s reliance on the US economy, a global economic collapse. Beyond this, the distant consequences are unknowable, but it’s certain they would not be positive.

The repeated pattern of unpredictable consequences appearing from seemingly simple reform truly begs the question of how these technophiles suppose they will enforce their reform upon the system without unwittingly repeating any of these cautionary tales.

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NOTES:

[1] (2003), Vol. 4, “Federal Reserve System,” p. 712, and Vol. 8, “monetary policy,” pp. 251-52; World Book Encyclopedia , 2011, Vol. 7, “Federal Reserve System,” p. 65.

[2] Kaczynski, Theodore John, Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, Fitch & Madison Publishers, Scottsdale, AZ, pg. 11.

[3] https://courses.bowdoin.edu/history-2203-fall-2020-scooper3/course-description/narrative/

[4] Being killed en masse mostly by farmers thanks to an enormous propaganda campaign. Roaming bands of peasants banging pots and pans and playing loud-speakers to keep sparrows in the air…until they fell out of the sky death from exhaustion.

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